The only movie reviews you need

All you need to know in 3 short paragraphs because honestly, who wants to read more?

Monday, March 9, 2015

Saving Private Hook

Northern Ireland, 1971.A year before the infamous “Bloody Sunday,”
tensions between Catholics and Protestants are reaching a boiling point.A young British paratrooper (Jack O’Connell)
is sent with his squad to maintain order and assist the local constabulary with
a house-to-house search in Catholic-controlled west Belfast.His young and wet-behind-the-ears leftenant
told them to ditch their riot gear and don their berets because “we need to go
out there and reassure people. We're here to protect them. We need to look them
in the eye and tell them that.” Whoo boy, just what could possibly go wrong?

''71,' first-time French helmer Yann Demange’s
superbly crafted and tightly paced historical melodrama, is cut from the same cloth as Walter Hill's 'Southern Comfort,' a heady cocktail of adrenaline-fueled survival story
mixed with a riveting cat-and-mouse hunt through the
mean streets of west Belfast.Taut and
nail-bitingly suspenseful, '’71' paints a vivid and sobering picture of the religious tensions
and political upheavals in Northern Ireland at a time when enemies can
become friends and the loyalties of “friends” can be questionable.Jack O’Connell, who recently portrayed yank
Louie Zamperini in Angelina Jolie’s ‘Unbroken,’ proved once again that he’s a
talented young Brit actor to keep an eye on, delivering a compelling and believable
performance as the hapless soldier-in-peril trapped deep inside hostile territory trying to survive.

From the opening scene of his
army training to his final deliverance, '’71' grabs us and never lets go.While there are scenes of brutal violence,
including a bombing at a loyalist pub by the IRA, there are also moments of
kindness, such as a former medic and his daughter patching up our badly injured
protagonist. By far my favorite scene in
the movie is a furious foot chase through the streets and alleyways of Belfast
the likes of which we haven’t seen on celluloid since Keanu Reeves' undercover FBI agent doggedly pursued Patrick
Swayze's bank robber in Kathryn Bigelow’s 1991 surf noir crime thriller ‘Point Break.’